Srikanth BollaFounder and CEO, Bollant Projects Pvt. Ltd.

Srikanth is the founder and CEO of Bollant Projects which is a fast growing packaging and consumer product manufacturing social enterprise in Andhra Pradesh. Aasadeep was mainly established to leverage employment opportunities to over 80 million uneducated and unskilled disabled people of India. Within 13 months, Aasadeep has achieved significant traction in terms of number of people impacted and the amount of clean products produced.

Srikanth is also Co-founder at Samanvai Center for Children with Multiple Disabilities, a three- year-old non-profit organization dedicated to providing various academic and career support services to people with disabilities. Samanvai provides a wide spectrum of support services to enable unconditional education through financial support and mentoring, computer literacy through tailor made computer courses and financial stability through main stream employment for people with vision difficulties.

Srikanth has been serving as a youth leader and trainer at LeadIndia 2020, a national youth movement, mentored by Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam. Srikanth motivated and trained around 800,000 students and adults in LeadIndia training programs. As a visually challenged individual, Srikanth has overcome many life challenges in order to achieve stellar academic and entrepreneurial success. He is a graduate of MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and the Royal Junior College, Hyderabad.

Jayesh RanjanIT Secretary, Govt. of Telangana

Mr. Jayesh Ranjan is a 1992 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer and working for the State of Telangana. He holds a Masters Degree in Psychology from Delhi University, a degree in Business Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and a Masters in Public Management from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

Jayesh Ranjan is the Secretary, Information Technology, Electronics & Communications Department , Government of Telangana, and also the Commissioner of Industries and Managing Director of the Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TSIIC). His responsibilities include identifying industrial development opportunities in the state, attracting investments, and providing the required infrastructure support to the industrial units. His previous assignments have been in the Tourism Department of Andhra Pradesh as its Secretary, and in Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (HUDA) as Vice Chairman, each lasting 3 years, among various rural assignments in different parts of the state for over 12 years.

Dr. "Desh" Deshpande, Chairman of Sparta Group LLC, A123 Systems (AONE), Sycamore Networks (SCMR), Tejas Networks, Sandstone Capital and HiveFire, is an Indian-American venture capitalist, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is involved in several companies either as the founder, a founding investor and chairman. He serves as a life-member of the MIT Corporation, and his support has made possible MIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation.

Dr. Deshpande is a trustee of the Deshpande Foundation. He and his wife are involved in several non-profit initiatives that include support for MIT, IIT, TiE, Akshaya Patra Foundation, Public Health Foundation of India and the Social Entrepreneurship Sandbox in India. Through Deshpande Foundation, he is helping NGOs scale up and sustain philanthropic initiatives on their own steam. His formula for self-reliance is relevance followed by innovation.

Dr. Deshpande holds a B. Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology - Madras, an M.E. from the University of New Brunswick in Canada, and Ph.D from Queens University in Canada. He co-chairs a National Council to support President Obama's innovation and entrepreneurship strategy.

Raju Reddy is the Founding Patron - Kakatiya Sandbox, Founder and Former CEO - Sierra Atlantic, a company that grew to be a best-in-class global services company over a period of 17 years. Under his leadership, Sierra Atlantic grew from a startup to over 2,400 employees worldwide, consistently ranked amongst the best managed companies including the top 75 most admired companies in Silicon Valley, Top 25 great places to work in India and Top 10 best employers in South China. Prior to founding Sierra Atlantic in 1993, Raju spent 10 years at Intel in software development, marketing, and general management. Raju enjoys working with young entrepreneurs and mentoring to build great companies. He currently serves on the board of Hitachi Payment Services, Grey Orange, Belong and Seclore, and previously served on the board of RedBus (acquired by Naspers), Cognovision (acquired by Intel) and EspressoLogic (acquired by CA).

Raju is active in not-for-profit initiatives and served as the Co-President and Board member of the India Community Center in Milpitas, CA. He previously served as the Chairman of BITSAA Intl., the alumni body of BITS Pilani, India's #1 ranked private university. He was invited to ring the opening bell on Nasdaq as BITSAA Chairman in December 2013, the first time any University from India was recognized to honor and celebrate its entrepreneurs. Raju is also the co-founder of Kakatiya Sandbox, an initiative in rural Telangana (India) focused on education and livelihood, that aims to build a local ecosystem for long-term, positive social impact. He currently serves on the advisory board of RAND Center for Asia Pacific policy. Raju also co-founded SIPA (Silicon Valley Indian Professional Association) in 1987.

Phanindra is one of India's leading social entrepreneurs and Founding Patron, Kakatiya Sanbox, in Telangana and Former CEO - redbus.in, India. His area of concern mainly revolves around creating a bottom-up approach to strengthen the economy and society. He is also the co-founder of redBus.in, India's biggest online bus ticket booking site. Ranked number 3 amongst India's Most Promising entrepreneurs by Business World, Phanindra was chosen as a Global Shaper 2011 at the World Economic Forum. Through Kakatiya Sandbox, Phanindra is working towards creating an ecosystem of nurturing social development by encouraging local entrepreneurship.

Naveen Jha CEO, Deshpande Foundation India

Naveen has been associated with the Hubli Sandbox since inception, and has been an architect intransforming it into a best place for innovators and entrepreneurs to experiment with their ideas of social relevance. He launched Sandbox Startups, an incubation center that has fostered the development of 45 companies so far.

Naveen is interested in agriculture innovations that can sustain small farmers. With a vision to infuse social enterprises with skilled intrapreneurs, he established Deshpande Educational Trust. He launched LEAD, a youth leadership movement, which has over 25000 students across five states of India. Under his leadership, the Sandbox concept has gained wide acceptance in India and is now helping other stakeholders replicate it in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Telangana. He was one of the founding members of TiEHubli chapter and served as its President from 2010-13. He is an advisor to Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) and a board member of various profit and not-for-profit enterprises. He has received Ford Foundation Fellowship.

Dr. Venkat Maroju CEO, SourceTrace Systems

As Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Venkat Maroju leads business strategy, global expansion and sales at SourceTrace Systems. He has turned the company around by rightly positioning it in the agriculture domain with the vision to capitalize on the worldwide demand for remote transactional solutions in this sector. Venkat brings with him rich and diverse experience in technology leadership, having worked with well-known global corporations like Bose and ComauPICO (A subsidiary of Fiat). He blends this with extensive grassroots-level experience with social enterprises in developing countries, as well as with micro-finance institutions, farmers' cooperatives, sustainable agriculture, rural supply chain and renewable energy.

Venkat's career began in the auto industry, where he led several large-scale technology transformation programs for digitization & collaboration for distributed product development and supply chain processes. Later, he became Divisional Information Officer of Bose Corporation where he led the information systems strategy and implementation for the global Automotive Division with presence in USA, Europe, Japan and China. Prior to joining SourceTrace, Venkat had founded Factum Ventures, a holding company in India that set up and promoted new business ventures in sustainable agriculture, microfinance and renewable energy. He led the strategic planning and business development efforts, including fund-raising.

Venkat holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management. He was a Sloan Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also holds a Ph.D. in Engineering from Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia and Masters in Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. His Bachelor’s degree in Engineering is from Osmania University College of Engineering, Hyderabad.

Yendala Soundarya Player, Indian National Hockey team

Yendala Soundarya nurtured the ambition of becoming a great hockey player against all odds. Her talent in sports was first recognised at school and in a short span of time, she was selected for sub-junior nationals held in Dehradun. Soundarya has played in the Andhra Pradesh Hockey Team in National Championships under Sub-Junior, Junior, senior Categories, consecutively for six years from 2000 - 2006. During her Intermediate in 2006 to 2008, she underwent training at the Sports Authority of India (SAI). After her participation in the 2006 National Games at Bhopal, she went on to play in many national and international hockey tourneys.

Soundarya has consecutively won gold medals in 2006, 2007, 2008 in the Senior South-zone Nationals. She secured the Gold Medal in the Under-18 International Hockey Tournament, held in Japan in 2006, and in the F.I.H World League Round-2 Winner, held in New Delhi in 2015. She has secured silver and bronze medals in all the major hockey tournaments around the world, including Senior Asia Cup, Asian Champion Trophy, Junior World Cup, World League, Tri Nation Cup among India, Italy and Germany, and Hawkes Bay Cup, among others.

Murali Naidu Bukkapatnam Trusty TIE Global

Murali is a committed entrepreneur, mentor, orator, angel investor and start-up evangelist. Currently he is the Managing Director and CEO of GDH Workforce Pvt Ltd, a private sector enterprise, providing graduates with current industry-required skills. Murali holds a number of notable positions, the foremost being: Trustee, TiE Global, President, ASTP - Association of Skill & Training providers, Past President of TiE Hyderabad and Member on the Board of Identis Solutions, Violet Street and MyLabYogi.

Murali is passionate about mentoring entrepreneurs. He takes keen interest in facilitating knowledge transfer in the areas of education, technology and social enterprises. He occasionally teaches business plan development at IIT Hyderabad and entrepreneurial leadership at IMT Hyderabad. Being a gifted orator, he is an effective communicator and can skillfully engage any audience.

Ever since Murali ventured into entrepreneurship in 2002, he has forayed into multiple sectors providing employment to a sizeable number of people, creating many entrepreneurs and generating more than US 8 million revenue.

Nikhat Zareen Indian boxer and former Junior World Champion

Nikhat Zareen is an Indian boxer hailing from Nizamabad in the state of Telangana, India. She was introduced to boxing by her father, Mohammad Jameel Ahmed, under whom she trained for a short period before being inducted into the Sports Authority of India to train under Dronacharya awardee IV Rao in 2009. A year later she was being declared as the 'Golden Best Boxer' at the Erode National Games in 2010.

Nikhat has won a host of medals in the national and international arena. She won the gold medal in the flyweight division held at the AIBA Women’s Junior World Boxing Championship in Turkey, 2011. She secured the Silver medal at the 2nd Nation's Cup International Women Boxing Tournament held in Serbia in 2012. She also won the silver in the Youth World Boxing Championship held in Bulgaria in 2014. At the Golden Globe World International Women's Boxing Tournament, 2014, she clinched the Gold medal and was adjudged the Best Boxer. In 2015, she won the Gold Medal at the 16th Senior Woman National Boxing Championship at Assam, India. Her current coach, Emani Chiranjeevi from SAI, is confident of Nikhat securing a medal for India at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Satya Phanindra Best LEADer, 2015

Satya Phanindra is an Associate at the Amazon Development Center, Hyderabad. What distinguishes him from his peers is his exceptional leadership ability. As an engineering student, he emerged as the leader of his class, the one who everyone looked up to for solving collective problems. As the Class Representative, he won the respect of his teachers and the admiration of his classmates. He joined the LEAD program of Deshpande Foundation during the second year of his Engineering bachelor's degree. Through LEAD, he found a way to channelize his energy towards implementing innovative projects for the benefit of his college and community. He was selected for LEAD Prayana and was adjudged the Best LEADer of 2015, among hundreds of other LEADers.

Some of his projects include collecting and donating stationary to rural students, conducting technical quiz competitions for different engineering streams, campaigns to prevent food wastage in restaurants and inculcating healthy eating habits in people.

B.Shivarudrappa Program Director, BAIF Institute for Rural Development

Shivarudrappa comes with nearly three decades of experience in rural development serving in various positions at BAIF Development Research Foundation, one of India's oldest development organizations. He is currently serving as the Program Director, taking care of the three states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. His areas of expertise include Agri Business, Watershed and Livestock Development, training of human resources for the development sector and formation and strengthening of Cattle Breeders Associations. He travelled to the Netherlands in 2004 to attend a training on Dairy Chain and Systems for agricultural development at International Agricultural Center, Wageningen University, giving him vital exposure to happenings in the international agricultural arena. Shivarudrappa has presented papers at many National Symposiums and Seminars, while also being invited as a distinguished subject matter expert at workshops and conferences, across the country.

Dil Raju Telugu Film Producer and Distributor

Dil Raju is regarded as the man with Midas touch in the Telugu film industry. Being passionate about films since his school days, his career began with film distribution in 1994. Despite a few failures initially, he stayed committed and is one of the few film distributors in the country to boast of a 90% success rate. He produces his films along with his two partners, cousin Sireesh and friend Lakshman, under Sri Venkateswara Creations, which he started in 1999. All his production ventures are hits with Arya and Bommarillu being remade into several languages and regarded as classics of modern times. Some of his other notable films are Dil, Bhadra, Parugu, Kotha Bangaru Lokam, Brindavanam and Mr. Perfect. His latest releases are Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu, Ramayya Vasthavayya, and Yevadu. He contributes his success to his ability to spot a good story and hard work.

Dr. N. Krishna Reddy CEO, Care Hospital

Dr. N. Krishna Reddy has worked at Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad, and Mediciti Hospitals, Hyderabad, prior to establishing Care Hospitals. He has pioneered advanced imaging techniques and electrophysiology procedures in the state of Andhra Pradesh.He established a dedicated department of Clinical Research at Care Hospitals and was the key member of the team that developed and tested India's first indigenous coronary stent, popularly known as Kalam-Raju Stent. He has been involved in indigenous development of end-to-end technology solutions for various stent-based and catheter-based products for which he has founded Relisys Medical Devices. He has been piloting an out-reach community care delivery model in both rural and urban areas in the states of Maharastra and Andhra Pradesh.Dr Reddy co-founded the Care Hospitals in 1997. He has been a core member of the care team working towards evolving global healthcare delivery solutions.

Murali Vullaganti Founder, CEO of RuralShores Business Service

Murali is the Chief Architect and Founder-CEO of RuralShores Business Service, a Socio-Economic initiative with a vision to setup Rural based IT and Business Process Centers nationwide. The objective is to create employment opportunities for rural youth while providing cost efficiencies for the corporate world.

Murali is also a Co-Founder and Director of Compassites Software, a Bangalore based business ideation and Innovation Company. Prior to assuming the above roles, Murali was Managing Director of Xansa India (now Steria) and Executive member of the Group Management Board.

Before moving back to India in 2003, Murali spent nearly 15 years in the USA and 5 years in Asia Pacific serving large Corporates including Electronic Data Systems (now HP). He served as a founder and Director of EDS' Global Financial Markets Group in New York and was credited for successfully building new practices (including Trading & Risk Management in the USA) and new markets (Capital Markets in Asia).

Murali has a Masters Degree in Computer Science from BITS, Pilani and a Masters Degree in Applied Maths from IIT, Kharagpur.

Thiagarajan Chief of Operations, Agastya International Foundation

Mr. Thiagarajan heads the operations of Agastya International Foundation, a non profit which runs world's largest hands-on Mobile Science Lab program serving the education needs of economically backward school children, since 2000. Besides operations, he is involved with Policy, scaling and replication, funding, development and innovations in products and services for the foundation.

A Chemical Engineer from IIT Madras, he holds an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad and has spent 33 years working in the corporate sector serving diverse sectors such as Engineering, IT, IT Enabled Services and Infrastructure as President, MD & CEO before moving to the social sector with Agastya.

He has lectured in leading Business Schools including the IIMs, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and global schools such as Yale School of Management, London Business School and Kellogg School of Management, Nothwestern University, USA.

Chandra Sekhar Putchakayala CEO, Vidya Helpline, Nirmaan

Chandra Sekhar hails from a small town called Vikarabad in Telangana state. He graduated from BITS Pilani and worked for JP Morgan for about 4 years. With his passion to provide access to quality education to masses, he quit his lucrative job as a manager and now serves as the CEO of Vidya HelpLine project of Nirmaan Organization, an NGO started in BITS Pilani, since 4+ years. Under his leadership the project has reached a scale supporting about 1 Lakh students annually from 4 states along with winning several national and international competitions including Vodafone Mobile for Good, Tech Camp Grand Challenge organized by US Consulate etc., Chandra is one of the initial team members of Nirmaan Organization and serving as the President since Jan 2014. He is also involved in various organizations such as Born to Serve Group, Yuva Varadhi etc., at various roles. He is also the Founder of Ed-Lead Educational services, a social enterprise working on various educational related projects in Telangana.

Chandra has also been awarded with BITSAA 30under30 award, instituted by BITS Pilani Alumni association, for his outstanding contribution in development sector. In the years to come he envisions starting a chain of schools providing value based education.

Dr. Yogita Rana Collector, Nizamabad

Dr. Yogita Rana is a 2003 batch IAS officer, hailing from Jammu and Kashmir. She has served extensively in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in areas of Land Revenue Management, Commercial Taxes, Social Justice and Empowerment and Tribal Welfare.

​ Ajit Rangnekar Former Dean, Indian School of Business

Rangnekar was formerly Country Head, PWC and has over thirty years of experience in East Asia and India in the areas of Business Strategy, Operations Management, New Business Creation, Systems Implementation and Performance Improvement in Telecom, Utilities, Energy, Chemicals and Shipping.

Sanjay Jesrani Founder & CEO, Go North Ventures

Sanjay is also an active member of the Indian Angel Network, charter member of TiE, and was formerly Head of the Global Delivery Center of Hitachi Consulting India and CFO - Asia & China of Sierra Atlantic. Go North is an angel investment and advisory firm, focused on investing in & mentoring Startups.

Dr. Deshdeep Sahdev Mentor at Quazar Technologies Pvt.Ltd.

Dr. Sahdev is a theoretical High Energy Physicist, whose chief interest lies in Cosmology. After obtaining his Ph.D from Case Western Reserve University, USA, he has carried out postdoctoral research at Cornell University and University of Pennsylvania, USA, ASICTP, Italy and at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai.

Dr. Radhika Shankar Founder, Wise Owl Consulting Services​

Prof. Radhika is a certified trainer, mentor and consultant for MSMEs. She has conducted over 90 training programs across India and abroad. She is a National Resource Trainer for the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) and is a recipient of the Entrepreneurship Educator-Champion 2015 instituted by a Special Jury of Ministry of MSME, British Council, EDII and Wadhwani Foundation.

Founder, S​ankalpa Rural ​D​evelopment ​S​ociety (SRDS)
Sikandar, a DFP graduate, founded SRDS to address the problem of depleting water levels in North Western Karnataka. SRDS has now recharged 180 borewells, 60 rain water harvesting structures and 200 tanks in both rural and urban areas across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Gurangouda N K Program Manager,Deshpande Education Trust

Guru has been instrumental in the scaling up the Deshpande Koutilya Fellowship from around 50 fellows a year to 250+ fellows a year. He has strong experience at both the grassroots and managerial levels. He is taking the lead in scaling the program to Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Amrut Patil Program Manager, Kakatiya Sandbox

Amrut began his journey with Hubballi Sandbox in the LEAD program in 2009. He is passionate about empowering youth to become self-reliant, inspiring them to take the lead in bringing about positive change in the society.

Innus is a graduate of the Deshpande Fellowship Program and manages the Better Cotton Initiative and other agricultural projects of the Foundation. Passionate about grassroots work, he leads a team of over 60 members and also trains students of DET's agricultural programs.

Iranna Rotte Program manager, Navodyami

Iranna joined the Deshpande Foundation's Navodyami program in 2011 and now manages five districts in Karnataka with over 100 micro-entrepreneurs. He consistently drives and inspires Navodyami entrepreneurs to achieve and surpass their potential.

Prashant Uppar Program Manager, Save A Mother Foundation

Prashant Uppar is a graduate of the Deshpande Fellowship Program and has been the Program Manager at Save A Mother Foundation since 2012. His team is working with 170 villages of Gadag district in North Karnataka and has educated over 4000 pregnant women in the last 9 months. He also manages Nizamabad district, covering about 100 villages of Banasawad Mandal.

Vanitha Datla Executive Director & CFO, ELICO Ltd.

Vanitha Datla is the Executive Director & CFO at Elico Ltd, a 50-year-old company that is a pioneer in the Analytical Instruments Industry, 'Innovating to connect Science with Lab'. She is also the Managing Director at Elico Healthcare Services Ltd, a service provider to the Health-Care Industry in countries like USA, UK, Middle East etc.

Vanitha is currently serving her second term as Chairperson, CII Telangana. She serves on the School Board of Management Studies, University of Hyderabad and is a Permanent Invitee to the Board of WWF State Chapter AP. Earlier, she was an active member of the Steering committee on 'Green Homes'. She also served on the Board of the ICFAI Business School Alumni Federation and was member of the Governing Council, Vishnu Public School.

Vanitha is a member of the CII National Committee on Backward District Development and CII National Committee on Women Empowerment. In the past, she has been member of the CII HR panel Southern Region and has served on the AP State panels of CII CSR, CII Finance & Taxation, Co-Convenor CII Exim and as Chairperson CII Women Empowerment Taskforce.

Sheela Reddy HR & OD Practitioner, Advisory and Coach

Sheela is a senior HR professional with over 20 years of rich experience in HR and OD function across industry segments with global presence viz., Information Technology, BPO, Pharmaceuticals, Engineering services, Infrastructure, Property Development, NGO, Healthcare and Hospitals. Her core competencies include Leadership Development, HR strategy, Organizational audits and studies, and Compliance and Operations Excellence.

Pavan Peechara President and CEO, Adaequare

Adaequare is a pioneer in cutting edge Data, Product and Test Engineering Solutions. Established in 2001, Adaequare is a CMMi Level 3 Certified company and has global presence across 3 different locations-India, US and Australia. Pavan founded Excellor, which is the in-house Enterprise level Ecommerce solution for retailers, manufacturers, distributors and growing e-tailers to accelerate their ecommerce.

Pavan also serves as Director at Udyog. He contributes to Adaequare and Udyog's organization planning, goal setting, managing growth and technology initiatives. During his professional career, Pavan has lead various automation projects in the capacity as a Consultant, Applications Development Lead and Systems Analyst and held multiple positions as Technology Consultant, Technical Resource Manager, Vice President - Operations, Vice President - IT Services at Adaequare and other global organizations.

He's currently closely associated with two other major technology launches. Taxilla - A collaborative cloud based dynamic data taxonomy transformation engine, and Havasay - An enterprise customer social engagement solution with advanced user identity management and consumer insights.

Siva Ramamoorthy Head Operations, Ephicacy Lifesciences Analytics

Siva Ramamoorthy serves as the Head of Operations for Ephicacy Lifescience Analytics, a US based analytics firm. He has a global corporate background with a core skill of building revolutionary new products and driving market adoption. The roles he has donned include Marketing Director, VMware; Director Sales and Marketing, Intel; Product Manager for greater than $500 million worth products at Nortel Networks.

A keen enthusiast of start-ups, Siva Ramamoorthy serves as a mentor for Zone Startups, located in the Bombay Stock Exchange, Mumbai. He is also a mentor at Sandbox Startups Hubli, and Stanford Ignite Program. He holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.

Ajit Narra Co-Founder of Presidency Kids Preschool and Academic Director for Presidency High School

Ajit is the Co-Founder of Presidency Kids Preschool and Academic Director for Presidency High School, he is based out of Nizamabad. Prior to this role, Ajit worked as VP Analytics at Hitachi Payments and as a Commodities Structurer at Deutsche Bank. He has a Chemical Engineering Degree from IIT Bombay and is passionate about STEM education. His aims to build an institution where students are stimulated and learn to question.

Shravya Reddy Operations and Business Development, Schlumberger

Shravya started her career with Schlumberger and has worked in Operations and Business Development roles in Africa, North America, and Asia. Currently, she is working with Presidency School to create a paradigm shift in the way teachers, parents perceive learning and education. She is a strong believer in social emotional learning. She has a Masters in Biology and Bachelors in Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering from BITS Pilani.

Jaishree Deshpande Trustee, Deshpande Foundation

Jaishree Deshpande is a trustee of the Deshpande Foundation. Along with her husband, Gururaj Deshpande, she shapes and approves the foundation strategies, reviews results and helps set the overall direction of their philanthropic efforts. Even before the Deshpande Foundation was formed, Jaishree had been actively involved in making a difference in the lives of others. She kept her commitment for ten years to cook at a neighborhood shelter the first Saturday of every month and adopted many families during the holiday season. She received the Citizens Who Care award from the Rotary Club of Andover in 2002.

The Community Service program at the Chinmaya Maruti Mission in Andover, Massachusetts was launched by Jaishree Deshpande. She serves as a trustee for the Museum of Science, Boston. She is the current co-chair of the Museum's Women in Science Committee. She is also actively involved with the HESTIA Fund, a fund established to support quality after school programs for low income children in the Boston area. Jaishree worked for the National Aeronautical Laboratories and the Indian Space Research Organization in Bangalore, India until 1980 before moving to Canada. She worked for several Massachusetts high-tech companies after moving to the United States and has taught several college level courses in computer science.

Dr. Shiban Ganju Founder, Save a Mother

Dr. Ganju has worked in the health care field for over four decades as a physician, and is the founder of the Save a Mother (SAM) Foundation which focuses on developing sustainable healthcare solutions. He is also the Executive Director of American India Foundation, and the CEO of Reliance Health and Technology, Mumbai. Dr. Ganju serves on the board of philanthropic institutions and also works at the policy making level with the Government.

Ramji Raghavan Founder and Chairman, Agastya International Foundation

In 1998, Ramji left a commercial career in banking and finance in London to create Agastya International Foundation, an innovative education initiative in India. Operating with a fleet of 31 mobile Labs, 14 rural science centers and a 170-acre Creativity Lab in Kuppam, near Bangalore, Agastya has given hands-on science education opportunities to nearly 3 million disadvantaged children and 1,00,000 teachers in rural India. Ramji is also a member of the Prime Minister's National Knowledge Commission (Working Group on Attracting Children to Science and Mathematics) and writes articles on education for Indian and foreign journals.

Lakshmi Pratury Founder and CEO, INKtalks

Lakshmi Pratury is an entrepreneur, curator, speaker, and self-described "people collector". She is the founder and CEO of INK, India's foremost platform for the exchange of cutting-edge ideas and inspiring stories. INK is known for events such as the annual INK Conference, INK Asia, and INK Salons, as well as for programs that transform imagination to impact, such as INK Fellows and INK Makers. Video releases from on inktalks.com have garnered more than 22 million views.

Lakshmi speaks widely on the topic of storytelling that is, the vital role that stories play in our families, businesses, and institutions. Her other pursuits including serving as director and co-host of the SingularityU India Summit in association with INK and as host of "Talk at 12 with Lakshmi Pratury" on Radio One, 94.3 FM in Bangalore. In 2009, she co-hosted the TED Conference in Mysore, India. Prior to this, Lakshmi spent two decades in the US in leading roles in technology, venture capital, and non-profit organizations including the American India Foundation, Global Catalyst Partners, and Intel.

Rajeev Baruah Country Head Better Cotton Initiative

Rajeev is presently the India Country head for the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). BCI is a global multi stake holder initiative which brings together producers, ginners, traders, spinners, mills, cut & sew, manufacturers, retailers, brands and civil society organizations in a unique global community committed to developing Better Cotton as a sustainable mainstream commodity.
Rajeev holds a Master's Degree in Social Anthropology from the Delhi School of Economics. After completing his Master's he worked in the tea plantations in Assam for a decade.
Rajeev has been one of the pioneers of the Organic Cotton in India and was associated with the bioRe/Maikaal project which started organic cotton way back in 1992, He has more than two decades of experience in working with directly with cotton farmers, ginning and spinning. Over the years he has developed an in-depth understanding of the challenges of cotton production and the possible sustainable solutions to the same. He works very closely with the leading cotton scientists of the country.

Palat Vijayaraghavan founded Lawrencedale Agro Processing in Ooty, The Nilgiris during March 2009 after being witness to the numerous troubles which the farmers go through in managing the life-cycle of their harvest. The farmers, especially those with land-holding of less than 2 acres, are at the mercy of numerous intermediaries, when they (farmer) want to sell the produce. Vijayaraghavan, along with three partners, innovated to walk with the farmer in the entire life-cycle of the harvest and get them beneficial forward market linkages, besides offering a host of farmer services to improve the quality of the yield while reducing dependency on chemical pesticides. Lawrencedale Agro Processing works with thousands with small land-hold farmers across South India to improve their realizations and bring in global best practices.
With this foundation, Vijayaraghavan re-defined the fresh produce post-harvest management processes to drastically reduce the supply chain losses along the farm-to-fork link which enabled the retailers to increase their focus on the front-end. Innovating further, Vijayaraghavan has put in place a series of technology processes to drastically reduce the contaminants from the fresh produce and make them
Safe- To-Consume. An Automobile Engineer by education, Vijayaraghavan is a long-time resident of Ooty, and has been active in preserving the natural environs of the ecological biosphere of Ooty through eco-friendly landscaping and improving the town's infrastructure. Vijay, a passionate and hands-on manager at Lawrencedale Agro, is also active in various facets of society development in Ooty and is actively involved in Road Safety Awareness.

Anjini Kochar Director, SCID India Program and Senior Research Scholar

Kochar is the Director of the India Program at the Stanford Center for International Development (SCID). Prior to joining SCID, Kochar was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics, Stanford University. Her research focuses on the micro-economics of development, and specifically on issues related to education, health, credit, population, inequality and the effectiveness of government programs. Her research has been published in leading journals, including the American Economic Review and the Journal of Political Economy. Kochar received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago. She also holds a Masters in International Relations from the University of Chicago.

Sudheendra Founder of Belong

Sudheendra is the founder of Belong - an outbound hiring solution that helps companies discover, engage & hire top talent. He believes if the right people come together at the right time, they can create maximum impact on earth. In his free time, he loves to go cycling and enjoys backpacking around the world. He's a native of Karimnagar, Telangana and holds a bachelors degree from BITS Pilani.

Dr. Sundar Kamath Senior VP, Technology, Sanmina Corp.

Dr. Kamath has extensive experience in technology development, and is involved in promoting hardware product development and electronics manufacturing in India through the Make in India initiative, and the US-India business council. He led a joint US-India CSR team to develop a special purpose bus that contains a medical clinic and a mobile classroom to deliver essential services to remote villages, and co-organized a global conference on using technology to build self-sustaining rural communities.

With over fifteen years of experience in the developmental sector across different states of India Neelam leads the livelihoods and micro-entrepreneur verticals at Deshpande Foundation. As the Director of Navodyami program Neelam uses her expertise in scaling micro-entrepreneurial ventures and develops market strategies. Till date the program has scaled over 3500 micro-entrepreneurs in the Hubballi Sandbox area. Along with her Grants team Neelam enables NGOs and social enterprises to test and develop prototypes for scalable community development. As of now Grants Program has made hundred such partnerships that have resulted in impacting over 10 million lives across sectors of livelihoods,education,health,Energy and agriculture in Hubballi Sandbox. She plays a key role in forging relationships with various partners to foster Hubballi Sandbox development. With a Ph.D. from SUNY at Buffalo Neelam is a strong advocate of women empowerment through entrepreneurship. She founded Women Entrepreneurs wing at TiE Hubballi (WE-TiE). Besides making impact in real time she teaches courses on Livelihoods,Social Entrepreneurship and Gender Studies for Master of Social Entrepreneurship program offered by Deshpande Center for Social Entrepreneurship.

K T Rama Rao Minister for Information Technology, Govt. of Telangana

K T Rama Rao or KTR as he is popularly known currently serves as the Cabinet Minister for three different portfolios namely Information Technology , Panchayat Raj and Municipal Administration and Urban Development. KTR has been awarded Most Inspirational Icon on the Year 2015 by CNN-IBN and Ritz Magazine.
He initially worked in the US and became the project manager at INTTRA Inc and eventually moved back to India to as the Regional Sales Director for South Asia in the year 2004. After he moved to India KTR joined the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and soon became the face of the Telangana movement in demand for a separate state and was soon called the Young Tiger of Telangana.
His timely statements/comments and his debating skills are comparable to the best and have a lasting impression on anyone who has heard him. He is one of the most well educated, prolific and promising young politicians of the country.

Yashwanth Sandupatla Analyst at Ankur Capital Fund

Yashwanth Sandupatla is an Investment Analyst at Ankur Capital Fund. He holds an undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics from IIT Bombay. At Ankur, Yashwanth analyzes the business plans of startups and carry out pre-deal and post-deal due diligence. Outside of work, he's passionate about wildlife conservation.

Prof. S Satyanarayana Vice Chancellor I/c for RGUKT Basar

Prof. S. Satyanarayana has over two decades of experience in education administration. He started his career as Assistant Professor in 1983 and became Professor in 1998. He was appointed as NSS Program Officer in Osmania University in 1983. He was also the Joint Director of Academic Audit Cell, OU (2000-2002).
In 2002 he assumed the role of Director, Directorate of Admissions. He was appointed as priniciapl of Nizam College (OU) 2006-2009. He was appointed as Registrar of RGUKT from 2009-2011 and he was appointed as Vice-Chancellor of Osmania University from 2011 to 2014 and also. Incharge VC for JNTU(H), JNTU (A) & Rayalasema University.
Professor Satyanarayana has got Merit Scholarship (A.P State Govt.), Junior Research Fellow, Senior Research Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow from CSIR, New Delhi. Post Doctoral Associate at Texas, Arlington, Missisipi State University and UMMedical center Jackson USA for four years (1989-93). He has published 135 papers in national and international Journals. 23 students awarded Ph.D under his guidance. Several projects handled from UGC, DST and DBT. Fellow of AP Academy of Science. BSR Fellow from UGC, New Delhi in senior level. He was attended several International Conferences in various countries like China, Turkey, Paris & USA etc.

Dr. Balaji Utla CEO, Kriahealth

Dr. Balaji Utla holds a Doctorate in Management. He has 32 years of experience spanning learning, organizational strategy and development, and corporate social responsibility. He is on the board of EPTRI and Drivers' Guild Foundation, the Chairperson of the CII Healthcare Panel in Andhra Pradesh, a member of FICCI Healthcare Panel, and on the advisory boards of several other organizations. Prior to joining KRIA Helathcare Pvt. Ltd., Dr. Utla was CEO Piramal Swasthya (formerly HMRI) and president (Corporate Sustainability) at Piramal Healthcare Ltd.
Dr.Utla was CEO of Satyam Foundation initiated by Satyam Computer Services (now Mahindra Satyam). Under Dr. Utla's leadership, Satyam received the Corporate Citizen Award from FICCI in 2006 and the TERI Award in 2007. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer in KRIA Healthcare Pvt Ltd.

Mr. Ravish Bhimani completed his graduation from Nishitha Degree College, Nizamabad in the year 2004. Further he completed his Post Graduation in EMBA Finance from S P Jain Centre of Management, Dubai. While pursuing his MBA he worked in a Jebel Ali based company with a Job profile of Analyst, which covered Cost, System, Production, Administrative and Marketing analysis.
He joined his family business in the year 2006.Today he is heading Administration and Finance department of Gajanan Group, Nizamabad with a Group Turnover of more than INR 1500 million with more than 125 people. He played a major role in implementation of Financial and Administrational Systems in accord to International Standards.

K. Rama Devi Founder & President, ALEAP

Mrs. Kanneganti Rama Devi is the Founder and President of the Association of Lady Entrepreneurs of India (formerly known as ALEAP). She is an educator, business consultant, social worker, and successful Indian entrepreneur. She established Shivani Engineering Works, and is an active mentor to women in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, extending support to help them realize their entrepreneurial potential and overcome challenges. Mrs. Devi was also instrumental in setting up the Center for Entrepreneurship Development (CED) to train women in all sectors to develop as entrepreneurs. She has been on a number of State and Central Government boards, and received the Best NGO Award – South India from the Rockefeller Foundation in 2012.

Vineel Nalla Reddy CEO & Founder, NBOS Technologies & 50K Ventures

Vineel Nalla is the CEO of NBOS Technologies and the Founder of 50K Ventures. Vineel has an experience of over 20 years and worked with various organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies. After graduating from University of Texas - Arlington with Masters in Computer Science, Vineel has worked as an Architect for a Fortune 500 organization where he built highly scalable middleware used for brokerage trading. He has assisted in bootstrapping the technology platforms of several startups that are diverse in nature. With a deep passion for nurturing ideas and startups, Vineel is in the process of putting together a startup accelerator program, a platform where enthusiastic people come together to share ideas and build MVPs at a record pace.

Mayur Patnala, alumnus of BITS, Pilani, is co-founder of Nirmaan and founder of the Vidya HelpLine project. He is currently driving the Nirmaan Youth Employment Project providing training and placements to unemployed youth. He has joined full time in Nirmaan leaving his lucrative and comfortable job with Government of Andhra Pradesh as State Project Manager, Rajiv Yuva Kiranalu. In his role he has facilitated training programs to 5000 youth of 13 districts and showing jobs to 2500 youth out of them. Prior to this role in Government, he worked with IBM for 5 years. Mayur is also the founder of Yuva Varadhi, a NGO working on youth sensitization. He is also an award winner of BITSAA (BITS Pilani Alumni Association) 30 under 30 in community service category for his outstanding service in social sector.

Sumesh Balakrishnan Country Director Finance-India

Sumesh comes with over 12 years of experience and currently is the India Fianace Team at Hitachi Consulting. He is a Business Finance and Tax Leader with expertise in areas of Corporate Finance, Domestic and International Taxation, Advance Pricing Agreement, MIS & Financial Reporting, Cost Management, Cross Border Mergers and Acquisitions, Treasury, Secretarial Compliance and SEZ Matters.

He leads the CSR activities at Hitachi Consulting and is also an active member of social and finance networking forums.

Mr. Ravi B. Reddy is the co-founder and chairman of Think Capital a privately owned fund with interests in contract manufacturing, technology, energy and real estate. Mr. Reddy actively focuses on philanthropic endeavors and is currently on the board of American India Foundation and LV Prasad Eye Institute. He is the founding donor of SKS Microfinance, India's largest micro credit organization".

G. V. Sarat Kumar Chief Program Officer ALC

Mr. Sarat Kumar has previously worked at the Aga Khan Health Service India before making a move to ALC India. He is a PGDRM in rural management from IRMA and a Bachelor of Science in botany. He specializes in strategic and business planning, developing community based institutions and project evaluation, assessment.

Sujai Karampuri Director (ITE & C), Govt. of Telangana

Sujai has over 16 years of experience in Wireless and Telecom Industry, having previously worked with Alcatel USA and Sasken in Bangalore. Prior to founding Sloka, he was a System Architect for Nortel GSM Base Station product line at Sasken, Bangalore. Before that, Sujai was with Alcatel in US and Europe, where he worked as Product Architect for Alcatel Mobile Switching Center, and Systems Engineer for Alcatel GSM Base Stations. Sujai has Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Regional Engineering College, Warangal, India (RECW/NITW) and a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Michigan Tech, Houghton, USA.

Development Dialogue

Development Dialogue is an international social entrepreneurship ecosystem conference hosted at Nizamabad, Telangana by Kakatiya Sandbox. Development Dialogue brings together numerous social entrepreneurs as well as those who believe in and are involved in creating ecosystems to nurture social innovation and entrepreneurship. The conference is attended by participants from for-profits, not-for-profits, global visionaries, impact investors as well as local communities to share proven models, innovations, and transforming perspectives.

Development Dialogue Theme

The Theme for the 2017 Dialogue is 'Scaling Effectively'. Once a social innovation idea has proven itself,
it needs to scale in order to significantly disrupt the problem. Scaling up is a challenge with a multitude of factors testing
the organization's managerial skills, capacity, ambition and finally, commitment towards making a meaningful difference
in the lives of many. It can only succeed if it is done effectively and is creating the intended impact.